


Lines That Are Thin

by mtac_archivist



Category: NCIS
Genre: Character Study, Episode Related, Gen, Not Episode Related, Not a Crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-10-11
Updated: 2008-10-11
Packaged: 2019-03-02 10:07:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13315878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mtac_archivist/pseuds/mtac_archivist
Summary: Jimmy muses about himself.





	Lines That Are Thin

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Jessi, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [ MTAC](https://fanlore.org/wiki/MTAC), an archive of NCIS fanfiction which closed in 2017. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after August 2017. I tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator (and this work is still attached to the archivist account), please contact me using the e-mail address on [ the MTAC collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/mtac/profile)

  
Author's notes: Contains spoilers for 'About Face'.  


* * *

Jimmy had never considered himself to be a brave person.

Indeed he was sure no one would ever call him brave.

As a young boy and teenager he'd been scared of many things; mostly the boys, and some girls, who had bullied him throughout his school years. And when he wasn't being bullied at school, he used to hide in his room to escape his father's wrath.

He ran away from fights rather than stand his ground. He let people push him and he didn't push back. He never broke any rules; he never got a detention; he never stayed out late; he never went to the 'bad' part of town. He tried as much a possible to be invisible, a non-entity.

Not even when, in his final year of High School, his only friend had told him that he _was_ brave, because he did walk away rather than fight, because he did keep studying even if his books were torn and he was laughed at, he didn’t see himself as brave.

Doctor Mallard had told him that not many people could, or would, face the kinds of thing they saw, touched, smelled and heard every day, but that wasn't being brave, not to Jimmy.

No, Jimmy had never considered himself to be a brave person.

Even when he'd disobeyed Agent Gibbs and had followed the team to the trailer park to apprehend Tesla Suskavcevic and had, in order to stop Telsa from getting away, driven his car into Tesla's truck, he hadn't been brave. 

At the time he'd thought maybe he had been brave as not only had he risked his life, but he'd dared to defy Agent Gibbs. But now later as he writes to him mom, he knows it was only bravado. 

He hadn't thought about it; he'd just done it, because it had to be done. But now he does think about it, he knows how foolish he'd been, what a risk he'd taken. He wasn't a Special Agent, he was only an ME's assistant. It wasn't his job to do such things; it wasn't his job to risk his life. The team would have caught Telsa without him. He knows that now; they did it all the time. It was their job; not his.

What if . . . 

What if he'd died? 

Who'd be writing to his mom now? 

And what would they say? 'I'm sorry to have to inform you, Mrs. Palmer, but your son is dead. He died a hero'. Or 'I'm sorry to have to inform you, Mrs. Palmer, but your son is dead. He died a fool'. 

Bravery or foolishness there was a thin line between the two. And while being brave was a good thing, acting foolishly, acting out of pure bravado, was not. 

He decides, despite what Agent Gibbs had said, not to tell his mom, at least not in detail. He'd mention he'd helped, but that was all. Anything else might worry her and he didn't want to do that.


End file.
